The next day.
“It has been a while since I worked up a sweat.”
Yeon Hojeong’s body was drenched after finishing the Evil-Smiting Corps’ training.
Perhaps because he had taken his hands off the Mo Yong Clan side and the Martial Alliance’s political arena, he had more mental leeway. Of course, he was still keeping his senses sharp in many directions, but compared to before, the things he had to worry about had been cut by more than half.
KUNG.
He set Mad Dragon down and took off his upper garment.
His sweat-soaked torso was packed with muscles close to perfection. He might look slender on the outside, but in reality, his muscles were compressed to the limit, giving him top-class explosive power and endurance.
“Hooop.”
He drew in a deep breath and lifted Mad Dragon.
The moment the Evil-Smiting Corps’ training ended, he moved into personal training. He had not been able to set aside cultivation time recently because of one thing after another, so he intended to train as much as possible while he could.
HOOOOOOONG.
Yeon Hojeong held Mad Dragon in both hands and raised it behind his head. His figure looked like a sculpture.
The pectorals and abdominal muscles stretched to the limit revealed tremendous elasticity. The muscles of his back, which had not been obvious when he stood straight, spread wide as if they were wings.
Yeon Hojeong slowly moved Mad Dragon.
Ugh.
It was an extremely slow movement.
He was moving Mad Dragon, which weighed over eighty geun, at an extreme crawl. A full cup-of-tea’s worth of time passed, and only then did the axe he had raised behind his head begin to pass over his forehead.
It was blunt-sword training, swinging in a way that stimulated not only the upper body but the muscles of the entire body down to the lower half. It was three times slower than the training he had done when he went to escort Gi Uhui.
Crack, crack!
The load on his muscles increased terrifyingly. His entire upper body flushed red. The strain on his joints was also being held at a precarious limit.
As expected, this is hard.
Even a Peak master could not easily endure it, and even a Clan Lord-level master of the Six Great Clans would struggle to keep it up without protecting the joints with Inner Qi.
In other words, it was training close to madness. Even with the mysterious power known as Inner Qi, most martial artists would not be able to withstand it.
It was extreme training possible only because Yeon Hojeong had forged his body through training beyond human limits and dense True Qi. Even Yeon Hojeong himself could shatter his joints if he relaxed his tension.
WOOOONG! WOOOOONG!
The Yeon Clan Divine Core trembled like mad.
By the time Mad Dragon reached his solar plexus, his body began reaching its limit. The Yeon Clan Divine Core was sending warning signals to protect that body, and Yeon Hojeong cleanly ignored those signals.
Tap! Tap!
His tightly gathered pectorals began turning not just dark red, but bluish.
And so another two gak passed.
The blade of Mad Dragon touched a stone on the ground.
Crumble.
The blade touched it, yet the stone did not split. It crumbled instead. The pressure of True Qi carried by Mad Dragon was that astonishing.
At the same time, Yeon Hojeong let go of Mad Dragon.
KUNG!
“Keuhuk!”
Yeon Hojeong spat out a rough breath and collapsed where he stood.
“Hah! Hah!”
It felt as though all the blood in his body had stopped, then begun moving again at high speed in a single instant.
His joints had taken no damage, but the muscles throughout his body had gone right to the verge of rupture. If he had not protected his organs with Four Spirit Qi, two or three of his five viscera and six bowels would have burst.
“Cough! D-damn it.”
Drops of blood came out mixed with his dry cough. He had protected his organs, but he could not avoid internal injury. The pressure transmitted into his abdomen itself had been immense.
That was because he had not simply swung Mad Dragon slowly. In each instant, he had imagined an enemy’s attack and adjusted the axe’s power accordingly.
Even so, it is possible without using Inner Qi except to protect my body.
He had swung Mad Dragon with pure physical strength for nearly half a shichen. It was not human strength.
Yeon Hojeong drew in a great breath.
FLASH!
A beautiful green-blue glow bloomed brightly from his body.
The Yeon Clan Divine Core moved more actively than ever before. Like water pouring down as a waterfall after a dam collapsed, True Qi rushed through the blood channels of his entire body and healed his muscles and internal injuries at a terrifying speed.
Before long, color returned to Yeon Hojeong’s face.
“This much from a single training session... This is excellent.”
The muscles throughout his body were running wild.
It was an extreme level of activation he had never tasted in any battle. Even for Yeon Hojeong, it was not training he could do often, but the benefits he could gain from one round of training and recovery were enormous.
The body is the vessel that contains enlightenment. My current problem is that the gap between my enlightenment and my physical body is far too large.
That was why he intended to gather the Yeon Clan’s Five Great Divine Arts. Through the unification of the various Inner Qi forces obtained from the divine arts, he meant to forcibly raise the level of his body.
But if he repeated today’s training, he felt he might reach that domain even faster than expected.
The ultimate domain only absolute {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} beings could glimpse. A supreme realm where one could fight a great-sect-level force head-on alone, without needing any strategy, tactics, or small tricks.
He felt as though he could reach the world of the martial god, where the Thirteen Seats of the Supreme Heavens walked, even faster.
I have already clashed with a master at the level of the Divine Flame Cult’s Eighteen Warrior-Generals. If they are not fools, they must already have begun investigating. It will take time because of the Martial Alliance’s eyes, but sooner or later, they will learn of my existence.
HOOOOOOONG.
The green-blue glow pouring from his whole body slowly settled. His body had recovered to some degree.
Faster, more certainly, more drastically.
Yeon Hojeong lifted Mad Dragon.
Neither his muscles nor his internal injuries had fully healed. And yet the axe felt even lighter than it had before training. It was as if every muscle nerve that had been asleep until now had exploded awake.
Feeling satisfied, Yeon Hojeong spoke in a calm voice.
“My training is over.”
“You knew after all?”
Flutter!
Ga Deoksang descended onto the wall of Warbreaker Pavilion.
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes widened.
“Your movement has become lighter.”
Ga Deoksang clicked his tongue in admiration.
“You can see that?”
“Would it not be stranger if I could not? Your True Qi seems to have grown even denser too.”
“That eye of yours alone truly deserves to be called the best of this age. I am still curious. How exactly did you become such a monster at that age?”
How could he possibly explain that long story? Yeon Hojeong merely smiled.
“Anyway, that body of yours really is strange. You picked up a mad heavy weapon over eighty geun and did blunt-sword training? Will you not ruin your body doing that?”
“I am regulating it properly.”
“Right. Who am I worrying about?”
Ga Deoksang dropped lightly to the ground, dusted off his hands, and spoke.
“We have no time, so I will get straight to the point. I watched the Mo Yong Clan side.”
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes gleamed.
“How was it? Was there any suspicious movement?”
Ga Deoksang sighed.
“I do not know.”
“What do you mean, you do not know?”
“In truth, once someone reaches the level of a Clan Lord of the Six Great Clans, there are no openings in how they handle matters. You know that well too, having watched Clan Lord Yeon from his side.”
“Mm.”
“There did seem to be suspicious movement. I especially examined Mo Yong Yeonhwa’s route, and unlike usual, she looked around here and there in the inner district.”
“And?”
“It was certainly suspicious, but there was no movement like sending a messenger pigeon or having someone leave the Martial Alliance. Of course, I placed people wherever she stopped by, but they too said they sensed nothing particularly unusual.”
Yeon Hojeong nodded.
“Mo Yong Yeonhwa moved differently than usual. That alone is enough.”
“I am sorry.”
“Do not think that. Just as Hu Gae said, if Mo Yonggun decides to hide something in earnest, it will be difficult for anyone to find out.”
Ga Deoksang smacked his lips. He felt sorry toward Yeon Hojeong, but he was also upset that the Beggars’ Union, said in its own way to be the best in the Central Plains at information and intelligence, had failed to catch the other side’s tail.
“In any case, if Mo Yong Yeonhwa moved differently from usual, surely that means there is something to her.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Let us watch that slowly.”
“Let us. Ah! Also...”
“Mm?”
Ga Deoksang’s face grew serious.
“About those information bases of the place you called the Divine Flame Cult.”
“...?”
“There is not a problem there for now, but there is something slightly unsettling.”
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes shone.
“What is it?”
“The strategist ordered our field agents to watch the movements of central and northern Henan. The authorities’ side, I mean.”
“...!”
No matter how much the empire’s power had weakened, watching the movements of the authorities was an extremely dangerous matter. If, by any chance, that fact were discovered, the relationship between the authorities and the martial world would deteriorate terribly.
Of course, both sides were watching each other in secret, but that was only within the line where it was not exposed. If the fact became openly known, a tremendous political problem could erupt.
In other words, Je Gal Munho had decided that watching the authorities was necessary even while accepting that level of risk.
“And?”
“We received intelligence that an unknown master is heading south.”
“An unknown master?”
“Yes.”
Ga Deoksang’s face was extremely grave.
“The world is wide, and there are many masters who act without revealing their names. But putting that possibility aside, the Union knows most of the masters active in Henan Province and Hubei Province.”
“...”
“And yet we detected the existence of a master we have never heard of or seen before. According to the intelligence, that unknown master’s martial prowess is at least at the level of a Clan Lord of the Six Great Clans.”
“...!”
“A Clan Lord-level master of the Six Great Clans. No matter how wide the world is, there are not many masters like that. Naturally, the Union keeps track of all Transcendent Peak masters active in Henan and Hubei, but he is not one of them. Judging by his appearance and clothing, he is a master who has never before acted in the martial world.”
“...His clothing?”
“That is exactly what is giving me a headache.”
Ga Deoksang frowned.
“He was not wearing the formal uniform of the authorities, but he was wearing the clothing of a high-ranking official distributed by the authorities.”
“...!”
“And on that clothing... there was a red shoulder guard that only someone of at least Assistant Commissioner of the Provincial Defense Command rank or higher can wear.”
Yeon Hojeong’s face immediately hardened.
There were sixteen provincial Defense Commands in the Central Plains. Each provincial Defense Command oversaw the guard stations of one province.
Among them, an Assistant Commissioner of the Provincial Defense Command was a high-ranking official of whom there were only four in each province, a power holder corresponding to the senior third rank. It could be said to be on a completely different level from the Pacification Officer post held by Gyu Jeok, the Divine Flame Cult’s Twelfth Warrior-General.
“And that man is heading southwest from central Henan. Precisely toward the Martial Alliance, toward Mount Daebyeol.”
“...I see.”
“We do not yet know whether he is someone from the Divine Flame Cult side. What is strange is that, if he did not want to be discovered publicly, he should have avoided that kind of clothing, yet he boldly wore official attire distributed by the authorities. That is a little odd.”
“There is nothing odd about it.”
The corner of Yeon Hojeong’s mouth twitched.
“An Assistant Commissioner of the Provincial Defense Command is on a different level from something like a Pacification Officer of the imperial Defense Command. If he really is a Divine Flame Cult figure, it will be difficult for us to touch him. The empire will investigate directly.”
“Mm, that is true.”
Ga Deoksang’s eyes shone.
“Then what will you do? Will you personally go dig into his trail?”
“Who knows.”
Yeon Hojeong looked down at Mad Dragon.
“...How should I handle this one?”
